


wasting hours on a losing battle

by youheldyourbreath



Series: wasting away in earth, wind and fire [2]
Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst, F/M, the world is on fire and peter suffers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-11 22:49:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17455766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youheldyourbreath/pseuds/youheldyourbreath
Summary: The assault continues and he doesn’t know how to fight, how to stand, how to breathe.Still, maybe it is the lack of oxygen rushing to his brain, but the only thing regrets is that MJ is waiting for him at the Festival. Alone. He hadn’t forgotten about her. God, he didn’t want her to think he had abandoned her. He never would have blown her off by choice. Not after the theatre and the world altering kiss he hastily had brushed against her cheek.Another gust of water knocks him on his knees. He hates how he cannot get his head around this attack. This is a horrible way to die, he decides.





	1. losing, losing, lost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tvfanatic97](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvfanatic97/gifts).



> this is the angsty follow-up fic to wasting hours on a set of smiles. you do not have to read the first part to understand this sequel of sorts. you can consider it a canon continuation of the first fic or not.

The effort is draining him. 

The elementals, as Fury had coined them, threw everything they had against Peter and spider powers were nothing against the combined forces of nature. The advanced suit that Tony engineered before he died was no match for the wind, fire, water and sand whipping at him from all directions. He could scarcely breathe. Peter gasps when the storm abates. 

It is only a momentary relief. 

The assault continues and he doesn’t know how to fight, how to stand, how to breathe. 

Still, maybe it is the lack of oxygen rushing to his brain, but the only thing regrets is that MJ is waiting for him at the Festival. Alone. He hadn’t forgotten about her. God, he didn’t want her to think he had abandoned her. He never would have blown her off by choice. Not after the theatre and the world altering kiss he hastily had brushed against her cheek. 

Another gust of water knocks him on his knees. He hates how he cannot get his head around this attack. This is a horrible way to die, he decides. 

His mind filters back to MJ. She had looked so bashful and pretty tonight. There was absolutely nothing that would have kept him from rejoining her at the Festival. Well, absolutely nothing except his impending death. 

The seemingly endless strike of elementals suddenly stops. Peter chokes. He sprawls on the cobblestone Prague streets, wheezing. 

When his eyes clear from the burning, he lifts his head from the ground and sees a pair of muddy boots. He struggles to his knees and clutches his bruised ribs. Peter heaves, bone tired, “Mysterio.”

The master of illusion, the man he had come to trust the last two weeks in Europe, sneers, “Mr. Parker.” 

“How could you?” He fights to stand. It is a losing battle. He falls back to his knees, to the ground. Peter tilts his head up, eyes narrowed, and breathes brokenly, “I trusted you.” 

“Yes,” Quentin Beck drones, “that was your mistake.” He kicks Peter square in the ribs and the pain is blinding. It shoots up his back like tiny electric shocks, all tuned in to fry his nerve endings. He drops on the ground. Hard. Peter grunts in pain. It takes everything in him not to scream. 

He rolls on his side, curling in on his pain. After Thanos life was supposed to be easier. All he had wanted was to spend one summer with his friends as Peter Parker, as a normal teenager. He spits blood on the cobbled streets, “Why? Why would you do this?” 

“Stark killed my family,” he says. And of all the answers in the world, Peter is not expecting that one. Tony had been dead for five months. He had died protecting all life, the universe itself, he didn’t take it. He wouldn’t have. His mentor had been a good man. Peter feels a pang deep in his chest. 

He shakes his head, emphatically, “No, you’re wrong. Mr. Stark wasn’t a murderer.” 

“He left a wave of destruction in his wake so profound, did you really not think there were casualties? Every battle. Every fight. Every villain. Civilians suffered. My mother suffered. Died. Choking on her own blood.” 

Peter grapples to a shaky standing position. It feels like his knees could give out at any second. He might black out. 

He knows, without any doubt, that Michelle is waiting for him at that festival. He wonders if she knows he wouldn’t leave her unless he had no choice. Mysterio is making it hard to get to her, but, damn it, he is still going to try. 

“Whatever Tony did, I didn’t kill your mother,” he says. The sins of the mentor did not extend to Peter. He is an innocent in all of this. 

Mysterio sets his jaw, “Stark is dead. So, there is no one but you to seek retribution.” 

Peter aches. He spasms. He wants to lay down and give up. But being Spider-Man means no matter how hard you get hit, you get back up. He is not going to let Mysterio win. Not for anything. “Me and you, then. No civilians.” 

Quentin shakes his head, “Oh no, Mr. Parker. When I’m done with you, I am going to leave a string of destruction through this city until I find that pretty girl of yours.” He smiles and it is wrong. It curdles his blood. “At the festival, I think I heard you say on the bridge.” 

He feels a visceral surge of furious energy nip at every synapse in his body. He is energized and incensed. There is no world, no place, no time where he is going to let Quentin Beck get anywhere near MJ. She is his something worth fighting for and the renewed sense of purpose comes just in time, as every bone and muscle in his body feels like it might grind to an excruciating halt. 

Peter feels the pain, but instead of knocking him down, it focuses him. He bares his teeth, “I’m not letting you get anywhere near her.”

Quentin glides unnaturally across the cobblestone. He assesses Peter with an aimless sniff, “I don’t think you have much of a choice.” 

His muscles howl as he trembles from the energy it takes to lift his arm and aim his web shooters, “Wanna bet?” Get back up, he tells himself, no matter what, get back up, Peter. MJ is counting on him. This city is counting on him. And it may not be Queens, but he doesn’t fight for just his neighborhood. Spider-Man means something bigger.

After Tony died, he let himself forget why he put on the suit, who he put the suit on for. He put it on for others. But he also put it on for himself. For Peter Parker. For the boy after Ben Parker. And the kid before, too. 

_Look, when you can do the things that I can, but you don't... and then the bad things happen... they happen because of you._

Peter grits his teeth. “We have a choice, Quentin,” he says. “All of us get to decide how we respond to loss, to grief. We can let it twist us, beat us down.” He thinks of Tony, then, and how it had been easier after Thanos to leave the suit behind, to ignore his responsibility to the people that needed him. Yet, what is easier is not always what is right. He is going to do what is **right**. “Or, we can learn to meet it head on, and say I won’t let it win.” He stands taller, the ache be damned, “I won’t let _you_ win.” 

He shoots off his webs in quick succession, catching Mysterio off guard. Peter uses the element of surprise to aim for his cuffs. That is how he controls the elementals. If he can get the cuffs off his arms, he can stop him, he can save the city. 

The irony is not lost on Peter.

Mysterio summons the green acid fog that chokes the air. His eyes mist, and Peter jerks his head down so the mask on his new black suit clicks shut over his eyes. It is only momentary relief. The onslaught of attacks come rapidly and unrelenting. 

All of the elementals focus the bulk of their energy at Peter. He jumps and leaps out of danger, narrowly missing every time. He is like a candle wick trying to outrun an open flame. It will light sooner or later and burn him. 

Unless he manages to subdue Mysterio first. He needs to get those cuffs off of his wrists. 

As he swings from building to building, he keeps focusing his webs on Quentin’s magical, scientific cuffs. He manages to land a direct hit and whatever mechanism is allowing him to syphon power is jammed. The Sand-Man and Hydro-Man both cease to exist, like they had never been there at all. 

Like they were one, big illusion. 

Peter knows that isn’t true. He felt the water hit him, the sand scratch his cheeks and the heat of the fire. That thing on Mysterio’s wrist is dangerous. Peter has seen first hand the power that magic wielders hold. 

He drops to the ground, crouching, as Quentin Beck curses and tries to yank the web solution off of his cuffs. Peter blasts two more quick webs. Mysterio’s wrists snap together in the makeshift handcuffs. He growls,  _“No.”_

Webs fly out in every which direction, properly subduing Mysterio. Even overpowered, Quentin threatens, “I’ll _kill_ you, Peter. You and your friends and that girl of yours.” 

Peter’s outrage flairs. His entire summer vacation with his friends had been hijacked by the threat of this man. Two civilians were in critical condition in Venice from the attacks of Hydro-Man. The world would undoubtedly be a better place without Quentin Beck. He yanks the mask off of his face, the gash on his cheek is deep and still stings. Peter soundlessly glares down at him, “You endangered this city, my friends, MJ. I should put you down.” 

“But then, how would you get to her in time?” Quentin smiles savagely. Peter stills. Something is amiss. Something he did not foresee. Quentin Beck still has the upper hand.   

He grabs him by the metal loop of his chest plate, “What does that mean? What are you talking about?” Mysterio laughs. Peter desperately demands, “What did you do?!” 

The screams begin in earnest, then. Innocents shouting for help and mercy. Peter turns around and spots the Ferris Wheel in the distance on fire. His hand slips from Mysterio who laughs and laughs and laughs. 

Peter’s lips part. He whispers,  _“MJ...”_


	2. Chapter 2

The buildings in Prague are not quite high enough to web-sling, and Peter is too exhausted to run. But the screams of the festival crowd do not abate, so, he limps. Something in his knee crunches with each unsteady step he takes forward. The sharp pain comes in waves that he manages to endure, somehow. He would crawl to them, if he had to, because he was given these powers for a reason. Not to use them, he had told Tony, back before everything changed, would make him complicit. After all, Mysterio had told him, these attacks were retribution.

If people died today, it was on Peter’s conscious.

He limps faster, howling after his foot snags on a jagged piece of cobblestone.

Less than an hour ago, he had walked down some of these streets with MJ. His hand held hers and she gave him the smallest, most hopeful smile that knocked him on his ass. Two weeks in Europe with her had been too good to be true.

The city burns.  

The festival is burning.

She is here. Somewhere. She is here and in danger all because of him.

_“I’ll meet you at the Festival! Go there! I’ll be there soon!”_

If she is hurt, he begins to consider, and quickly banishes the thought. He can’t allow himself to even think it. Michelle is okay. He is in time. She is safe.

She has to be.

He yells out her name, but in the chaotic flurry of screaming and citizens fleeing to safety, his voice gets drowned out. He doesn’t have the energy to shout over the crowd and there is no feature on this black, useless suit that could help make his voice carry. SHIELD didn’t build this suit with the love, care and attention Tony once had.

It is a black husk, built to hide in plain sight. Stealth is not going to help him win this battle.

He feels himself shaking. “Michelle,” he bellows, struggling to push through the crowd that does not budge. “MJ!” he half sobs, fighting for another inch, another step closer to the monster.

The fire elemental hurls a meteor of molten lava at the edge of the crowd. People disperse, crying, and Peter, finally, breathes. There is no current of bodies to rage against. It is now him and the monster who has yet to notice him.

Perhaps, he concludes, a little stealth might help him, after all.

He sneaks, in the shadows, toward the monster that is howling and spitting fire at fleeing citizens. His red, melting fist is rested against the side of the Ferris Wheel. The operator has long-since run to safety. There are civilians still stuck in their cable seats. One, in particular, that he notices, helplessly dangling off the ledge.

“NED!” Peter shouts.

His friend clings to the metal side of the swinging seat, as his feet buoy in the open air. “Holy crap,” Ned squeals, “Pe—Spider-Man?”

Betty scrambles off the edge of the seat, holding her boyfriend’s arms for dear life, trying to pull him up to safety. She is not strong enough. And Peter can see Ned’s strength is fading. “Hold on!” he yells.

The structural integrity of the Ferris Wheel looks poor, at best. He misses Karin. She would have been able to assess the situation, guide his feet in the safest, most practical manner. He is blind without her.

Another voice, like a half-remembered dream, whispers in his memory:

_If you’re nothing without this suit, then you shouldn’t have it._

He grits his teeth. He is Spider-Man. He is Peter Parker.

And he can do this. Peter shoots a web at the Ferris Wheel and lets himself fly. The metal ride whinnies a terrible crack. It will not hold for long. Betty falls backward in her seat when Peter is suddenly perched on the edge of the ride. “Uh, hello, miss,” he says, lowering his voice a smidge.

“A little help!” Ned bawls.

Peter curses. “Right.”

He grabs the back of Ned’s shirt and hoists him up into the seat, to momentary safety. Betty flings herself into her boyfriend’s arms as soon as he is settled. She starts kissing all over his face and he pats her knee patiently, “I’m okay, I’m fine.”

“Ned,” Peter says, forgoing his lowered voice and the illusion of not-knowing-him. He doesn’t have the time to pretend to be only Spider-Man. MJ is in trouble. She needs him. Betty can ask a million questions—hell, she can know his identity—so long as he gets to save MJ. “Where is MJ?”

Betty greys, “Peter?”

He ignores her, “Ned, please.”

Ned shakes his head, “I don’t…I don’t know. One minute she was with us and the next…wait, Peter. Peter, you were with her.”

Peter’s stomach sinks, “No, no I wasn’t.”

Ned insists, “Yes, you were. We got on the Ferris Wheel, the four of us. You two took the car after—”

“Oh no,” Peter trembles. His hands close in two, tight fists. “ _Mysterio_.” The illusions were beginning to really get on his nerves. He doesn’t have the time to wonder if the Mysterio he had been fighting a few blocks away had been the real one or an illusion, or if the Mysterio that had shown up at the Festival, to MJ, had been real or an illusion. He doesn’t need to know. The only thing that matters is MJ.

The Ferris Wheel cries, again. It will not hold.

“Ned,” Peter grips his best friend’s upper arms, “Do you trust me?”

Ned nods, “Always.”

Peter smiles, “Good. Hold tight.” He catapults his friend out of his seat and tosses him in the air. Betty screams. And just before Ned hits the ground, Peter shoots a web and catches Ned in a pseudo-hammock made of web. He bounces twice and then rolls onto the ground, safe and unharmed.

Peter turns to Betty. She takes two small steps backward, “Oh no.”

Peter apologizes, “I’m so sorry, Betty. I don’t have the time to argue.” He projects her out the side of the cable car and her screams are like murder as she falls. She continues to scream when she lands perfectly, cradled in the makeshift hammock.

Only when Ned has her back on her feet, does she stop yelling in favor of shooting Peter the finger from the top of the Ferris Wheel.

Luckily, there are no other occupants on the ride.

Which leaves MJ.

MJ.

He shoots his web at the back of the fire monster’s head. It howls and stomps around to stare at the spider perched on the top of the Ferris Wheel. Peter yells, “Hey ugly, where is my—”

But the monster disappears. It winks out of existence. The fire that ravaged the Festival stills roars, but the cause is gone. Not dusted or dead. Just gone.

Another illusion.

And that is when Peter spots Quentin Beck parading into the middle of the square with Michelle’s upper arm clenched in his fist. She struggles against him, cursing and kicking, and Peter wants to web the stupid smirk off of his stupid face. “Spider-Man,” Mysterio yells to the top of the Ferris Wheel, “I believe you are looking for something?”

Michelle says something he cannot make out, but the corner of her mouth is pressed and furious. He doesn’t like her being used as bait as much as she does. On that, they completely agree.

Peter drops off the edge of the Ferris Wheel and before his feet his the ground, he shoots a web to glide to a safer landing. His knees still ache when his feet his the ground. His fight with Mysterio from earlier is still coursing through his tired bones. He is injured. He does not have to look beneath his suit to know he is bleeding. The where is unclear. He wants to lay down.

But when he forces himself to stand, he sees MJ and remembers his fight is not done.

“Let her go, Mysterio. Your fight is with me,” Peter wearily says.

The caped master of illusions tsks, “You look unwell, Spider-Man.”

“Well,” Peter replies, “I’ve been better. I won’t lie.” The elementals kicked his ass. He is seventeen. Too young to handle a group of supervillains without back-up. He wonders if the Avengers were still a team, this would have been the sort of thing that wasn’t below their paygrade.

Michelle notices how finished he looks, he sees her eyebrows crinkle in concern, but she does voice her worry. Instead, she quips, “You’re late for our date.”

He can’t help it, he smiles, “I got held up.”

Mysterio tosses MJ to the ground, “Enough!”

Peter sees red. It utterly consumes him. Anger. He does not consider himself a vengeful, angry person. But when Michelle hits the ground, when her hands scrape on the cobblestone and come away with blood, he knows he has a well of emotion in him untapped. His fury. He clenches his fists, “Oh no. See, we’re not going to do that.”

Mysterio cracks open his mouth to speak, but Peter does not let him.

In fact, Peter is not sure what he lets happen. His vision shifts from a violent red to black. He feels his webs fly out and he feels his muscles ache from punches and he smells the bitter iron of blood. He knows he is fighting. He knows whatever he is fighting is not an illusion, but a man of flesh and blood.

He knows that he is outmanned and outgunned, and that this war is way beyond his paygrade. He knows that men with powers like Quentin Beck once dusted half of an entire universe. He knows that he should lose. He knows that he might die.

None of that matters.

When his vision clears, when he returns to his body, it is weaker and injured and he is fading, fading, fading fast, but he is still standing. He got hit and he stood up. Again and again.

He sees Nick Fury, for some reason, who is binding Quentin Beck with some kind of spell. He sees Maria Hill, helping the wounded. He sees Ned and Betty watching him from a distance.

But he doesn’t care about anything except the girl that is running to him with bloodied palms and a striking, distressed face. She throws herself in his arms and, against all odds, he catches her.

He buries his face in her dirty, bloody hair and breathes. She scrambles for a too tight hug, she claws at his back, and he holds her just as tightly. “You’re okay,” she whispers.

“I’m so sorry,” he hiccups.

She shakes her head, clinging to him, “You’re okay. That’s all that matters.”

The sirens of foreign police officers ring in the distance. Peter startles. He will not be able to be anonymous for long. The people from the Festival all fled when the battle began. SHIELD is here now to clean up their mess, but he, Spider-Man, needs to go. He can’t be here.

Michelle seems to understand that implicitly. And yet, she does not let him go.

Instead, she rolls up the bottom half of his black mask, until it tickles his nose. “MJ,” he asks.

She shushes him. He has so many questions. He is still reeling from the fight. He wants to check her hands, the hands he had held earlier that night, to see if she is okay, but she doesn’t give him the time. She steals forward and kisses him soundly.

He is more than surprised.

And has even more questions, now.

When she pulls away, she pushes him away, playfully, “Go on. Get out of here.”

He yanks his mask down, over his mouth that still tingles from her kiss, “Wait, MJ—”

She shakes her head, “Later. Go on.” Michelle Jones smirks, “Spider-Man.”

He is weary and broken and still healing from this fight and Thanos and all of it, but this girl, this wonderful, extraordinary girl, makes him start to dream of wasted, beautiful hours where the only battle he will have to wage is not falling in love with her too fast.


End file.
